This chapter explores the evolution of Atlanta’s local food truck movement, contextualizing the rise of this emerging industry within the changing local and state regulatory environment. Through a ...
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This chapter explores the evolution of Atlanta’s local food truck movement, contextualizing the rise of this emerging industry within the changing local and state regulatory environment. Through a review of historical documents and a survey of social media outlets, the researchers find that food truck vendors in Atlanta, aided by third sector intermediaries, have thrived by working around, rather than within, the existing regulatory framework. Despite the ability of this new industry to cater to a specific middle and upper class market, food trucks in Atlanta have not increased entrepreneurial diversity or access to new and healthy foods for low-income neighborhoods as some advocates have argued. The Atlanta food truck case exemplifies the problems that restrictive policies can cause by demarcating public and private space in ways that privilege entrenched interests and restrict entrepreneurship and innovation.Less

Mackenzie WoodJennifer ClarkEmma French

Published in print: 2017-09-01

This chapter explores the evolution of Atlanta’s local food truck movement, contextualizing the rise of this emerging industry within the changing local and state regulatory environment. Through a review of historical documents and a survey of social media outlets, the researchers find that food truck vendors in Atlanta, aided by third sector intermediaries, have thrived by working around, rather than within, the existing regulatory framework. Despite the ability of this new industry to cater to a specific middle and upper class market, food trucks in Atlanta have not increased entrepreneurial diversity or access to new and healthy foods for low-income neighborhoods as some advocates have argued. The Atlanta food truck case exemplifies the problems that restrictive policies can cause by demarcating public and private space in ways that privilege entrenched interests and restrict entrepreneurship and innovation.

The urban food scape is changing rapidly. Food trucks, which are part of a wider phenomenon of street food vending, are an increasingly common sight in many cities throughout the United States and ...
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The urban food scape is changing rapidly. Food trucks, which are part of a wider phenomenon of street food vending, are an increasingly common sight in many cities throughout the United States and Canada. With this rise in the popularity of food trucks, the key issue of regulatory conflicts between the state, street food vending and food truck entrepreneurs, and the wider industry as a whole, has risen to the fore. Cities have responded in various ways to increased interest in mobile food vending – some have adopted encouraging and relaxed regulations, some have attempted to harness the momentum to craft a city brand, and some have rigidly regulated food trucks in response to protest by brick-and-mortar competitors. This Introduction frames the volume through its guiding questions and a variety of lenses - community economic development, social justice, postmodernism. The Introduction also outlines the sections of the volume (Democratic vs. Regulatory Practices and Spatial-Cultural Practices) and summarizes the chapters included in each section.Less

Introduction

Julian AgyemanCaitlin MatthewsHannah Sobel

Published in print: 2017-09-01

The urban food scape is changing rapidly. Food trucks, which are part of a wider phenomenon of street food vending, are an increasingly common sight in many cities throughout the United States and Canada. With this rise in the popularity of food trucks, the key issue of regulatory conflicts between the state, street food vending and food truck entrepreneurs, and the wider industry as a whole, has risen to the fore. Cities have responded in various ways to increased interest in mobile food vending – some have adopted encouraging and relaxed regulations, some have attempted to harness the momentum to craft a city brand, and some have rigidly regulated food trucks in response to protest by brick-and-mortar competitors. This Introduction frames the volume through its guiding questions and a variety of lenses - community economic development, social justice, postmodernism. The Introduction also outlines the sections of the volume (Democratic vs. Regulatory Practices and Spatial-Cultural Practices) and summarizes the chapters included in each section.

Our applied research/practice team of two attorneys and a social scientist produced this case study of an immigrant woman, who learned to be an entrepreneur. Our central narrative describes how New ...
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Our applied research/practice team of two attorneys and a social scientist produced this case study of an immigrant woman, who learned to be an entrepreneur. Our central narrative describes how New York City government’s response to mobile food vending prioritized powerful special interests at the expense of expanding economic opportunities in the service of the greater public good. This central narrative develops through our detailed description of an immigrant woman’s circuitous path to business and back to wage labor.Less

Stuck in Park: New York City’s War on Food Trucks

Sean BasinskiMatthew ShapiroAlfonso Morales

Published in print: 2017-09-01

Our applied research/practice team of two attorneys and a social scientist produced this case study of an immigrant woman, who learned to be an entrepreneur. Our central narrative describes how New York City government’s response to mobile food vending prioritized powerful special interests at the expense of expanding economic opportunities in the service of the greater public good. This central narrative develops through our detailed description of an immigrant woman’s circuitous path to business and back to wage labor.

Regulating food trucks and street vendors is a policy issue facing many cities across the U.S. This paper compares the street vending regulations in Chicago, IL and Durham, NC, cities which have ...
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Regulating food trucks and street vendors is a policy issue facing many cities across the U.S. This paper compares the street vending regulations in Chicago, IL and Durham, NC, cities which have pursued opposing approaches. Chicago, IL maintains a strict policy, while Durham has a liberal policy towards the sale of street foods. Despite the regulatory variation, similar inequities among groups of street vendors exist. Namely, both cities have a set of gourmet food trucks that operate in the central business district and gentrifying neighbourhoods, and a set of immigrant vendors that are excluded from these spaces. Regulation, therefore, cannot be credited with reducing inequities in the bifurcated labour practices of the street vending industry. Rather, variation in regulation is found to have minimal influence on the practices of street vendors across the two cities. Therefore, changing regulations from restrictive to liberal is an imperfect solution, contrary to the findings of much of the literature. Instead, structural inequities between vendors should be addressed.Less

Why Local Regulations May Matter Less Than We Think: Street Vending in Chicago and in Durham, North Carolina

Nina Martin

Published in print: 2017-09-01

Regulating food trucks and street vendors is a policy issue facing many cities across the U.S. This paper compares the street vending regulations in Chicago, IL and Durham, NC, cities which have pursued opposing approaches. Chicago, IL maintains a strict policy, while Durham has a liberal policy towards the sale of street foods. Despite the regulatory variation, similar inequities among groups of street vendors exist. Namely, both cities have a set of gourmet food trucks that operate in the central business district and gentrifying neighbourhoods, and a set of immigrant vendors that are excluded from these spaces. Regulation, therefore, cannot be credited with reducing inequities in the bifurcated labour practices of the street vending industry. Rather, variation in regulation is found to have minimal influence on the practices of street vendors across the two cities. Therefore, changing regulations from restrictive to liberal is an imperfect solution, contrary to the findings of much of the literature. Instead, structural inequities between vendors should be addressed.

The urban foodscape is changing, rapidly. Fish tacos, vegan cupcakes, gourmet pizzas, and barbeque ribs, and all served from the confines of cramped, idling, and often garishly painted trucks. These ...
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The urban foodscape is changing, rapidly. Fish tacos, vegan cupcakes, gourmet pizzas, and barbeque ribs, and all served from the confines of cramped, idling, and often garishly painted trucks. These food trucks, part of a wider phenomenon of street food vending, while common in the global South, are becoming increasingly common sights in many cities, towns, and universities throughout the United States and Canada. Within the past few years, urban dwellers of all walks have flocked to these new businesses on wheels to get their fix of food that is inventive, authentic, and often inexpensive.
In From Loncheras to Lobsta Love, we offer a variety of perspectives from across North America on the guiding questions “What are the motivating factors behind a city’s promotion of mobile food vending?” and “How might these motivations connect to the broad goals of social justice?” The cities represented in the chapters range from Montreal to New Orleans, from Durham to Los Angeles, and are written by contributors from a diversity of fields. In all, the chapters of From Loncheras to Lobsta Love tell stories of the huckster and the truckster, of city welcomes and city confrontations, of ground-up and of top-down, of the right to entrepreneurship and of rights to active citizenship, of personal and cultural identities and patterns of eating and spatial mobilities, of cultural and political geographies, of gastro-tourist entities and as city-branding tools, of the clash of ideals of ethnic ‘authenticity’ and local/organic sourcing.Less

Food Trucks, Cultural Identity, and Social Justice : From Loncheras to Lobsta Love

Published in print: 2017-09-01

The urban foodscape is changing, rapidly. Fish tacos, vegan cupcakes, gourmet pizzas, and barbeque ribs, and all served from the confines of cramped, idling, and often garishly painted trucks. These food trucks, part of a wider phenomenon of street food vending, while common in the global South, are becoming increasingly common sights in many cities, towns, and universities throughout the United States and Canada. Within the past few years, urban dwellers of all walks have flocked to these new businesses on wheels to get their fix of food that is inventive, authentic, and often inexpensive.
In From Loncheras to Lobsta Love, we offer a variety of perspectives from across North America on the guiding questions “What are the motivating factors behind a city’s promotion of mobile food vending?” and “How might these motivations connect to the broad goals of social justice?” The cities represented in the chapters range from Montreal to New Orleans, from Durham to Los Angeles, and are written by contributors from a diversity of fields. In all, the chapters of From Loncheras to Lobsta Love tell stories of the huckster and the truckster, of city welcomes and city confrontations, of ground-up and of top-down, of the right to entrepreneurship and of rights to active citizenship, of personal and cultural identities and patterns of eating and spatial mobilities, of cultural and political geographies, of gastro-tourist entities and as city-branding tools, of the clash of ideals of ethnic ‘authenticity’ and local/organic sourcing.

This chapter applies different concepts of radical street theatre and urban performance in order to theorize the ways in which food trucks form temporary communities in urban spaces through embodied, ...
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This chapter applies different concepts of radical street theatre and urban performance in order to theorize the ways in which food trucks form temporary communities in urban spaces through embodied, performative intervention. An ethnographic portrait of one of Toronto’s first and best-known food truck entrepreneurs, Fidel Gastro, is employed to demonstrate the precarious position food trucks hold within the political narratives governing public space in the city of Toronto, and the ambivalence food truck entrepreneurs display toward current configurations of urban market economies. David Harvey’s conception of the right to the city is then critically applied to this scenario in order to argue that food trucks harbor the potential to intervene in dominant urban narratives, allowing urban dwellers to assert the common right to change ourselves by changing our cities.Less

Eating in the City: Fidel Gastro, Street Performance, and the Right to the City

Edward Whittall

Published in print: 2017-09-01

This chapter applies different concepts of radical street theatre and urban performance in order to theorize the ways in which food trucks form temporary communities in urban spaces through embodied, performative intervention. An ethnographic portrait of one of Toronto’s first and best-known food truck entrepreneurs, Fidel Gastro, is employed to demonstrate the precarious position food trucks hold within the political narratives governing public space in the city of Toronto, and the ambivalence food truck entrepreneurs display toward current configurations of urban market economies. David Harvey’s conception of the right to the city is then critically applied to this scenario in order to argue that food trucks harbor the potential to intervene in dominant urban narratives, allowing urban dwellers to assert the common right to change ourselves by changing our cities.

During 2010s, in response to new food truck operators, the city of New Orleans loosened regulations for food truck vending. At the same time the city turned its regulatory eye towards other forms of ...
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During 2010s, in response to new food truck operators, the city of New Orleans loosened regulations for food truck vending. At the same time the city turned its regulatory eye towards other forms of street vending and introduced a new second line vending ordinance. Using the New Orleans case, we argue that relaxing rather than revising regulations—and subsequently planning for ways to make street vending compatible with other activities—would be more effective and just. The authors participated in and observed 32 second line parades (parades organized and sponsored by African-American historic benevolent societies) during one season to understand how second line vending played out and the potential impacts of the new ordinance. This analysis demonstrates that compliance with the second line ordinance would have restricted vending without resolving identified concerns. New Orleans is an instructive case because the intent was to allow rather than eliminate vending. We argue that increasing compatibility between vending and other street activities makes food and goods available in the spaces were urban residents can most easily access them, and thereby establishes a more effective and just public space.Less

Learning from New Orleans: Will Revising or Relaxing Public Space Ordinances Create a Just Environment for Street Commerce?

Renia EhrenfeuchtAna Croegaert

Published in print: 2017-09-01

During 2010s, in response to new food truck operators, the city of New Orleans loosened regulations for food truck vending. At the same time the city turned its regulatory eye towards other forms of street vending and introduced a new second line vending ordinance. Using the New Orleans case, we argue that relaxing rather than revising regulations—and subsequently planning for ways to make street vending compatible with other activities—would be more effective and just. The authors participated in and observed 32 second line parades (parades organized and sponsored by African-American historic benevolent societies) during one season to understand how second line vending played out and the potential impacts of the new ordinance. This analysis demonstrates that compliance with the second line ordinance would have restricted vending without resolving identified concerns. New Orleans is an instructive case because the intent was to allow rather than eliminate vending. We argue that increasing compatibility between vending and other street activities makes food and goods available in the spaces were urban residents can most easily access them, and thereby establishes a more effective and just public space.

In this reflection on the chapters included in the volume, the editors draw out major threads of discussion and highlight opportunities for future research. Two main threads of conversation about ...
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In this reflection on the chapters included in the volume, the editors draw out major threads of discussion and highlight opportunities for future research. Two main threads of conversation about power surfaced throughout the collection: power and cultural identity, and power and criminalization. This final chapter explores and summarizes the ways in which the chapters in the volume illustrate the emerging urban trend of food as a cultural commodity. Additionally, the chapter synthesizes depictions of the bifurcation of the food truck industry and the discriminatory implementation of regulations. Finally, the editors recommend further investigation into the direct connection between identity formation and social justice, as well as the impact of incubator organizations on food trucks and street food vending. Importantly, the editors call for research on the relationships between street food vending, food trucks, and gentrification.Less

Reflections

Julian AgyemanCaitlin MatthewsHannah Sobel

Published in print: 2017-09-01

In this reflection on the chapters included in the volume, the editors draw out major threads of discussion and highlight opportunities for future research. Two main threads of conversation about power surfaced throughout the collection: power and cultural identity, and power and criminalization. This final chapter explores and summarizes the ways in which the chapters in the volume illustrate the emerging urban trend of food as a cultural commodity. Additionally, the chapter synthesizes depictions of the bifurcation of the food truck industry and the discriminatory implementation of regulations. Finally, the editors recommend further investigation into the direct connection between identity formation and social justice, as well as the impact of incubator organizations on food trucks and street food vending. Importantly, the editors call for research on the relationships between street food vending, food trucks, and gentrification.

This chapter examines the contrast between street vending and city regulatory responses in Vancouver, Canada during two time periods—the 1970s and the 2010s. The comparison of “hippy” vending in the ...
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This chapter examines the contrast between street vending and city regulatory responses in Vancouver, Canada during two time periods—the 1970s and the 2010s. The comparison of “hippy” vending in the 1970s and “hip” food carts and trucks four decades later illustrates the contradictory impulses that shape regulation of commercial activity on city streets. First, there is a process of “formalization” that seeks to tame the informality and messiness of street vending through new rules, standards and regulations. But by the 2010s, a second, contradictory, impulse appears: an embrace of informality reflecting new ideas about “vital” city streets and identifying street vending, in the form of food trucks and carts, as “hip.” But the apparent embrace of the informal has unfolded through highly formalized procedures, and the vitality associated with vending in Vancouver is acceptable precisely because it has been (re)introduced in a highly formalized, regulated form.Less

From Hippie to Hip: City Governance and Two Eras of Street Vending in Vancouver, Canada

Amy Hanser

Published in print: 2017-09-01

This chapter examines the contrast between street vending and city regulatory responses in Vancouver, Canada during two time periods—the 1970s and the 2010s. The comparison of “hippy” vending in the 1970s and “hip” food carts and trucks four decades later illustrates the contradictory impulses that shape regulation of commercial activity on city streets. First, there is a process of “formalization” that seeks to tame the informality and messiness of street vending through new rules, standards and regulations. But by the 2010s, a second, contradictory, impulse appears: an embrace of informality reflecting new ideas about “vital” city streets and identifying street vending, in the form of food trucks and carts, as “hip.” But the apparent embrace of the informal has unfolded through highly formalized procedures, and the vitality associated with vending in Vancouver is acceptable precisely because it has been (re)introduced in a highly formalized, regulated form.